Come Away With Me
by titaniasfics
Summary: An Alternative Growing Together Story written for the Growing Back Together Writing challenge, Prompt - Rain. Follows the events in the movie, Mockingjay, Part 2.


**Banner by the amazing** **akai-echo**

 **Come Away With Me**

 **An alternative** **Growing Back Together Story**

 _ **I want to walk with you**_

 _ **On a cloudy day**_

 _ **In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high**_

 _ **So won't you try to come**_

 _ **[...]**_

 _ **And I want to wake up with the rain**_

 _ **Falling on a tin roof**_

 _ **While I'm safe there in your arms**_

 _ **So all I ask is for you**_

 _ **To come away with me in the night**_

 _ **Come away with me**_

 _ **-from Come Away With Me by Norah Jones**_

 **(Author's Note at the end)**

 **Summer**

"Prim!" I scream, trying to be heard above the roar of gunshots and the panic of crazed parents trying to reach their wailing children. Her blond hair glistens like dewy flower petals in spring, despite the fact that everything not scorched by fire is covered in sparkly ice as if spray-painted with frost. I'm near the barricade and know she hears me, for as she turns, her lips form my name.

The dream ends at it always does - with exploding parachutes and fire; so much fire, I become a fire mutt, every lick of flame coaxing only agony from me. But the worst pain comes not from my wounds, not from the fires that my wings fan higher and higher until I am as incandescent as the sun. It comes from inside, as I realize that despite the flames, I am now ash, with crushed wings and no sister.

My screams ring in my ears long after my eyes have opened but the dream doesn't wake me. Warm hands, shaky with his own fear but still strong even after so much loss stroke away the terror. Had I been alone, the dream would have left only emptiness - frigid and dark in the middle of my soul. But Peeta's hands sweep away the horror and the dank air of that horrible memory, leaving me warm with comfort, though it is tinged with sadness and longing for what I will never have again.

I grip him until the swaying of my misery stills and I'm calm again. I rub my face into his t-shirt, the faint smell of cinnamon, dill and sweat pulling me with gentle finality into the warm night. We are in Victor's Village, in the house we share, since his was destroyed in the firebombing. I couldn't bear to have him stay with Haymitch, cleaning up after our old mentor's booze and puke. I'm still ash, my wings were not real and I'm decidedly, unambiguously, without a sister. But I'm not alone.

This had been the reality of the last few months since my return to District 12. Everything changed when Peeta came home so that this is what we've shared each day since. Yet tonight, something shifts again and the narrative changes. The story I've been telling myself to make sense of the leftovers of my life is altered when I feel Peeta's lips against my temple. The kiss is soft but lingering, as if he is savoring some change in himself also, something tied to me. He's come to this room all these months, holding me through the worst of my nightmares. But tonight, he kisses me. Instead of allowing myself to simply be comforted, I lean into his arms and let the first hints of longing begin to fill the charred, hollow places inside.

 **XXXXX**

He's gone in the morning. He comes to me, holds me, brings me back to the world and then leaves before I wake again. This is our routine, our dance. We don't talk about it during the day. He bakes, I hunt, Haymitch drinks and chases his geese. We orbit each other as I struggle with my profound emptiness and Peeta searches for the pieces of himself that have been scattered to the four winds.

This particular morning, after my nightmare with Prim, I watch him. That kiss is a cord that now connects me to him, unbreakable and full of feeling that I gather indirectly from the things he does - the way he sneaks a glance when he thinks I'm not looking, the slight shiver of an errant touch of my hand. I can't forget the warmth that his kiss has left behind as I watch him prepare to bake bread in our kitchen.

He pauses in his preparation, looking down with confusion at the supplies he is carrying. "Raisin nut bread in your favorite. Real or not real?" he asks.

"Real. It's the bread you tossed to me that night in the rain," I answer. It's not the first time he's made it but he forgets things.

"Oh, good. I got that right," he says, giving me a small smile as he sets his things on the counter. He moves his paint supplies onto the window sill and clears the surface, dusting flour onto it before kneading the ingredients together. He presses his hands into the rapidly forming dough, coaxing a shape from it, the muscles of his arms bunching when he sinks into the mass before him. I open my mouth to speak but pause and close it again, enjoying, for once, the pleasure of simply watching him. He doesn't notice, perhaps still considering the bits and pieces of memories that float their way back to him, and carries on until the bread is safely in the oven.

 **XXXXX**

 **Fall**

We work each afternoon on the memory book. It's grueling and exhausting but we're more than half way through. So many tears, flashbacks, and nightmares accompany us to this point but it purges us, makes our burdens somewhat lighter. For once, I ask Peeta a question that is unrelated to the tributes he is drawing.

"Is that one of your new pencils?" I venture, suddenly missing the sound of his voice.

He looks up, clearing his throat before answering, "They came in with the last Capitol shipment. Graphite. These are my favorite," he holds it up, so that I can look at it, but his eyes are just beyond and while I feign interest in the object, I'm really spellbound by how clear and blue they are today. When he is caught up with a memory or struggling to make sense of what is real or not, they become clouded like the mists of a humid autumn morning, the pupils dilating slightly. But I know he is in relative peace when their color is vivid, like they are now, despite the fact that we are laboring over those who are no longer alive. I guess this is a sort of progress too.

"They seem...nice…" I answer, my throat suddenly dry. I touch my temple, sure the warmth of his lips is still etched there even after so many months and find I have nothing else to add. So I return to my watching and he continues sketching, his eyes occasionally flitting up to catch me staring. And I let myself get caught.

 **XXXXX**

 **Winter**

"Repeat after me. I, Patina Paylor, do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United Districts of Panem, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United Districts of Panem."

Commander, now President Paylor's steady voice rings out across the Avenue of the Tributes. "I do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United Districts of Panem, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United Districts of Panem."

I am not much for politics - I never have been, unless forced to be. But this moment moves me. It has taken a year but free elections were finally held - I still have a smudge of the ink on my finger that I used to cast my vote - and Patina Paylor won by a healthy margin, marking the beginning of what is being hailed as the Age of Democracy in the UDP, as it has come to be known. I find myself tearing up as, with the unaffected gravitas that made a district of slaves follow her into self-sacrifice, war and eventually victory, Paylor turns to the crowds in the new legislature, depicted as tiny little dots on the screen. They cheer, at first politely but then more enthusiastically for their first elected leader in more than eighty years.

Peeta sits close to me, quiet but visibly moved also. This day symbolizes so much, because we were sure, time and again, that we would never live to see it. And yet, here we are. When the day came, it found us seated on a soft, worn sofa in front of the television in our quiet corner of Victor's Village. During the course of the program, our finger have become entwined and I bring them to rest on my lap, reveling in the rare pleasure of his touch, except when the barriers fall at night. So calloused and warm and yet so gentle and light on my skin, I have to take a breath to steady myself.

"It's incredible, isn't it?" he asks, as the program turns to commentary and he lowers the volume. It reminds him too much of Caesar Flickerman and the interviews he was subjected to in the Capitol. This causes his mood to sour quickly and his hand visibly shakes in mine. I squeeze, hoping to comfort him.

"Maybe it all had some meaning in the end," he says with a quavering voice, searching the air for a something that is only a part of his memory.

"I hope so," I say carefully, watching him become confused. "So much was lost because of it," I answer, thinking of my mother and Prim and wishing I hadn't.

He nods, his distraction complete as he visibly struggles with a memory or a conflict in his mind, one of the millions of things he experienced that I will never know. He gently pulls his hand from my lap and gets up, wandering off to his room. I feel the loss of his proximity in a physical way and curl up under a comforter on the sofa, listening to the the tinkling of paintbrushes hitting glass as the sounds float through the house.

 **XXXXX**

He still comes to me at night, still pushes all the misery aside but he is gone each morning, making his stay almost dream-like. I don't have the courage to bring it up to him during the day. It's an insurmountable thing, like the hauntings of a ghost who only appears at night, a ghost who croons and soothes and holds me, unafraid to be touched. Each time I wake to find him gone, my disappointment only increases.

Peeta wanders in a place without windows or doors. I can't get to him when he travels like that so I do what I've been doing so well of late. I stare at him, at the powerful contours of his face, the unbroken lines that make up a character so determined to stay intact that torture and hijacking couldn't keep him from pulling himself together again. But it's slow going for him too and I wait and watch. Wait for him to come back, to come away with me. Because vines that grow together are more powerful than those that grow alone.

 **XXXXX**

There is still only sporadic electricity throughout the District and the continuous rains of late winter have done a remarkable job of keeping our house in darkness. I don't mind it - I only understood what it was like to live with electricity for a brief period of my life - during the Victory Tour and my time in the Capitol. We'd always used gas lamps and the fireplace in our house in the Seam. It had been more than enough for me then and suits me just fine now. I open the door, letting the cold, wet air float inside the house.

"That's nice," he says, breathing in the crisp air, which he seems to need more of now than he did before the war. Confinement. He doesn't do well with it.

"After my rescue, I couldn't stand the sound of water...splashing water, running water…" he said quietly.

I take a seat in front of the door, resting my head on my knees. He follows suit, though his prosthetic makes such a position impossible. Instead, he rests his elbows and stares out into the rain. The air is heavy with pine and vegetation.

"Why?"

Peeta looks at me with eyes haunted with those mysteries he tucks so deeply away from me. "Johanna...we could hear each other. The...things…they did" he turns his head again toward the rain. "But rain is different. The sound - there's not way that rain...can hurt you…"

I don't know why, but his words take me back to when Gale suggested we run away. It had seemed an impossibility then but later, in District 13, I thought about it again. I could have done it. Run away. Live in the woods. After all, everyone who mattered to me was safe, or so I had thought at the time.

Everyone except for one.

As long as I was in suspense about his fate, I couldn't leave, couldn't try out my theory, that I could live alone, that I could make it in the woods. As long as Peeta was in Snow's hand, I was no better than Buttercup chasing a beam of light. I would run and run until I'd spun myself dizzy and I still wouldn't have been able to go. That experience taught me a new kind of mental torture - the agony of uncertainty.

And when certainty finally came, it brought along with it the awareness of his suffering and its direct correlation to me. And it had broken me. Now, looking at the rain pool in the crevices of the cracked concrete and untended lawns of the empty houses, I see weeds fighting for their life, pushing the buds of young dandelions up through the harsh barrier of stone. But what he sees is something that won't hurt him, among the many things that had. It makes me ache for all his pain and I suddenly imagine both of us like those plants struggling up through the ground. I want roots like those weeds for us, roots that grow so deep, the next wind that passes won't be able to pull us up again.

 **XXXXX**

 **Spring**

I'm happier than I've been in a long while. The temperamental days grow longer while the stars dimple the clear nights. Peeta loves spring the way I do, filling him with more animation than I've seen from him since his return to District 12.

"It was the busiest time of the year," he says as I help him frost the cookies. My hand is not as skilled but I manage trees, simple flowers and happy faces, using chocolate chips, jelly beans and mints for eyes and noses. "The only other time we were not actually more busy was during the toasting season. But not by much," he says as he takes the cookies out and places them on a rack to cool.

I remove the ones I've decorated and place them inside of a small confection box. We've decided we'd take a box each to Haymitch, Sae, and Thom. As extra special box is set aside for Delly Cartwright, who has just returned to the District after more than a year in the Capitol with a mind to rebuild her parent's shoe shop. She is as alone as anyone but she's gotten right to work, reestablishing connections, making new ones with other survivors, regardless of whether they were Merchant or Seam. Thom spends a lot of time with her, so that one eases the loneliness of the other.

"I remember walking through town with Prim and stopping in front of your family's bakery to look at the frosted cakes. Some days, it was the only beautiful thing we'd see for a long while."

Peeta pauses in his work, a soft bloom of pink spreading across the tops of his cheeks. "I...I remember that," he wipes his hands on his apron, even though they aren't dirty. "You couldn't see me but I...I watched you. You came every week or so after school. I just watched," he looks up, his eyes so vulnerable, they reach down into that part of my heart where he has taken root and grown into a vibrant ivy that clings and pulses with my every thought. I only felt this strongly for one other person in my life but. she is gone.

I reach out to take his hand, clammy and shaky from whatever ghost is battling to rise up before him. I squeeze and hold on and though he flinches, he doesn't let go.

 **XXXXX**

Haymitch's geese have gotten loose. The clouds are grey with the threat of rain as Peeta and I help our old mentor chase down the rascals. They are remarkably fast despite how fat they are, a condition I'd like to credit to Haymitch's excellent care of the birds but is more a function of how good they are at taking care of themselves, getting out and grazing on the abundance of seeds and food at the edge of the woods. Haymitch curses the beasts but he loves them, in that taciturn way he has of caring for a thing and resenting it at the same time for the inconvenience of making him feel more than indifference.

I'm out of breath when Peeta closes the latch after the last of the feathered occupants are returned to the cage.

"Damned birds," Haymitch swears, wiping his sweaty brow, his breath coming in gasps

"You're too out of shape to do this," Peeta quips. I smile at the memory of our old mentor stumbling madly behind the geese, losing his footing several times in pursuit of them.

"No I'm not," Haymitch says defensively. "They're just too fast for me, that's all."

Peeta chuckles and the sound makes me happy. He didn't laugh very much when he first came back and I think it might be the first time I've heard him do it. I makes me feel weightless and tingly all over.

Haymitch gives a huff of indignation and returns to his home, muttering something under his breath about birds and kids and gratitude. Like we've done so easily of late, I grasp Peeta's hand and we wander back to our house, listening to the geese honk chaotically from their pen, which provokes another chuckle from Peeta.

"I'll never understand why Haymitch insists on having those animals if he can't take care of them," Peeta says, looking across the yard at the smelly, muddied birds. The dull thud of thunder echoes in the distant mountains and the air is heavy with humidity.

"They're something he can care for that won't be taken away," I say quietly, thinking of all the things we tried to take care of and couldn't.

Peeta turns from his consideration of the geese and stares at me, his eyes as clear as my father's lake. A wayward strand of hair whips against my cheek in the wind, a strand he pushes behind my ear with a deft sweep of his fingers. I couldn't take care of him when it mattered but I was here now and I had a chance, perhaps, to recover that and give him what I couldn't give him in the Arena, what I'd tried so hard to win for him - safety, protection, his very life. Without warning, I reach up on my tip toes and press my chapped lips against his soft ones.

The kiss triggers a powerful warmth in me, warmer than his hand in mine as we walk, warmer than his arms when he holds me at night. It's fire but the kind that makes you feel full and satisfied, not burned and scarred. His lips move against mine and they draw me in, making me heady with want and my mouth opens of its own volition. But then he stops. He freezes like a rabbit who's caught a hunter watching him. When he pulls back, he's unfocused, his arms hanging limp at his side.

I step back also, suddenly ashamed of my boldness. Had I just kissed him? Why had he stopped? Had he thought better of it? I watched in horror at his eyes gone wide with shock. How could I have miscalculated so badly? How could I have gotten it all wrong?

I move further away, searching for some way to escape and, catching sight of the trees, make a dash for the fence. I haven't run this fast since I was in the Arena and it burns every muscle from my calves to my hips, a flaming ache of terror remembered, but this time, I carry the enemy within. My impulsiveness confused his tranquility with a need like mine. All the pent up frustration of wanting something undefined, something I had no idea I needed until it presented itself in the form of his heat provokes a fit of sobbing, and I'm forced to slow down so that I can gulp at the air.

I was too happy. That's what happened. The last few days, I put down my guards, enjoying the glimpses of the old Peeta - the one who joked and made funny observations, who loved baking and was generous to a fault. I forgot. I forgot, that he, too is broken, and I shouldn't have pressed down so hard along the still-fragile fault lines of his wounds. How could I be so stupid!

I sink against a tree trunk, staring out into a ravine that breaks the valley before me in half. Beyond is the flash of lightning and thunder that rolls ever closer. I want to stay here and stare at the foliage, draw peace from things I know well - the woods and every plant and animal in it. I stay in my reverie of nothing, letting the mortification drain temporarily from me when the first smattering of raindrops lands on my father's leather jacket. The lightning is closer and thunder booms nearly overhead, I have no choice but to go or risk getting caught in a storm.

The rain pours down as soon as I've decided to return home and becomes heavier and heavier the nearer I get to the gate leading to Victor's Village. I'm drenched to the bone in a torrent so loud, I barely hear my name being called until I'm almost upon him. In an equal state of dishevelment, Peeta has penetrated the woods in search of me, his voice hoarse from screaming.

"I'm here!" I cry out, trudging through mud and soggy branches. "I'm here!"

He catches the sound of my voice above the drone of falling rain and turns towards me. Without a word, he closes the distance between us and before I'm aware of it, his arms are around me, his lips crashing down on mine. Now it's my turn to be surprised as he pulls me against him, almost lifting me from the ground. His lips are frozen but his tongue, which prods my mouth for entry, sears mine. I forget the rivulets of water that run down the back of my shirt, pooling inside my boots, reducing my toes to squishing in soggy socks. I forget that we're damaged and alone and far too broken to want what we're giving each other now.

Peeta breaks off first, staring down with unclouded eyes whose eyelashes hang with fat drops of water. "Why did you go!" he shouted over the whoosh of the storm.

"I...I thought I'd made a mistake!" I shout back, wondering why we're not heading back home but loathe to lose the feel of his arms, even in the soggy discomfort of the pounding rain.

He shakes his head, his mouth splitting into a wide grin before he kisses me again. The flash of lightning explodes nearby, followed by the ear-splitting crack of thunder, drives us apart and forces us back home.

 **XXXXX**

The letter arrives in May, as a kind of belated birthday gift. Peeta still comes to my bed and leaves in the morning but his hugs are easy and his kisses are more free. Like the blooming meadow beyond the fence, the world wakes from winter, each leaf and bud stretching it's sleeping limbs to the sun, looking for warmth, growing upwards because that's what they must do. It's written in the order of things that are more ancient than war and blood, arenas and dying children.

Peeta and I decide to wait until after dinner to read it together. The electricity is gone again so I've lit lanterns and placed them on the table, pushing the encroaching darkness out beyond the sphere of powerful light that encompasses both Peeta and I. I watch the shadows dance over his face as he reads Annie's letter.

 _Dear Peeta,_

 _Thank you for the watercolors you sent. They are lovely and so realistic! It is very rainy here also - the ground is always muddy and it feels like I haven't been dry in a month. I guess this is the spring to finally wash away all the signs the war has left behind._

 _You'll be happy to hear that Katniss' mother has been training new medical units in the Capitol._

 _Gale has been promoted to a Captain in District 2 to help keep order and security. And I'm loving every moment with my son, who reminds me everyday of his father. We've all suffered so much but we owe it to their memories and to our children to do our best with these lives._

 _I hope you're both finding some peace._

 _With love,_

 _Annie and Tristan_

He pulls out the picture that had been carefully tucked into the stationary. A baby sitting on his mother's lap. A baby with eyes like his father, chubby and glowing with his mother's love. I touch my flat stomach and think of what I once vowed would never grow there. As I hand the picture back to Peeta, I remember a dream I had in the Quarter Quell, one of the rare moments of happiness in the middle of more horror than any person should ever have to endure, where I dreamed of Peeta's child in a world where he can be safe. A blond-haired child with eyes like mine. It is distant and terrifying but suddenly very possible.

Maybe Peeta's child could also be mine?

Peeta looks up at me, a melancholy smile on his face. He is lost also, in his own dreams and recollections. Maybe he is thinking of his blond-haired boy also or any number of memories provoked by Annie's letter, a small connection to a world with people like us, people who have lost things, people who are carrying memories on their shoulders and weights in their hearts, sometimes so heavy they stumble under them, though sometimes it feels like we are the only ones.

I turn to organize the kitchen, hoping that it will help order the thoughts in my head.

 **XXXXX**

We part as we always do, him to his room and me to mine. The smell of the burning lamp oil floats in the room as I take up a slim book and try to read it. But my mind refuses all distractions and finally, I cast it aside. I think of Annie's letter, of her baby, of growing things and life, life that goes on no matter what is lost or burned away. Trees that grow, mountains that move, streams that fill and empty. It is, ironically, a strange comfort that while we are all too busy killing each other, the sun rises and sets on everyone. There is continuity and life marches on despite our singular gift for self-destruction. And for reasons unknown to me, I find it incredibly uplifting about the idea that something exists, separate from and untouched by us.

I want to sleep but my mind is racing. There's something unfinished, something that pokes at the edge of my mind, a circle I have to complete before I can have peace. It's a nagging want, a vague need I've been hiding from myself for months. It comes only at night, when I have nightmares, holds me until I'm calm and goes away again. But why should I suffer to have it? Haven't we all suffered enough?

I turn over in my bed, laying on my back, staring up at the high ceiling, a non-functioning electric lamp hanging in all its useless splendor above my head. I grip the blanket, hearing the gentle rain come down again, rain that will flood and wash and away every last sign of our destruction and leave us the way we were meant to be - clean, whole, in the middle of knee-high grasses, chasing dandelions, climbing trees, maybe tending a garden. Definitely tending a garden. Fatherless. Motherless, maybe. Sisterless for sure but not without that elusive thing that won't leave me alone tonight; that has never left me alone from the moment it came back on that train from the Capitol.

Without saying the words in my mind, I obey a decision that comes from my belly and throw aside my covers. The only sound I hear is the quiet padding of my feet as I cross the hall. His light is on also - he always leaves a little light on, the flame burning until deep in the night when he finally shuts it off. A little luxury in a life with so few luxuries. But when I come to his doorway, his eyes are closed and his head rests on his arm - his usual sleeping position. Without thinking about the where's and why's, I lift the blanket that covers him and slip underneath. It's automatic, like a moving piece sliding into the gear made only for it. I place my head on his chest, my hand resting over his midsection.

As Peeta emerges from his sleep, his movements are slow and heavy. His arm automatically wraps around my shoulders and squeezes gently. How like the trains and the nights in the tribute center. How like the cave, where the rain also fell in torrents at the entrance. Yet now the rain appears because it is the natural consequence of its own nature to fall and water the world and not an instrument to elicit yet another drama, another false sentiment from the hearts of an audience. It obeys only itself, the way I do now as I wriggle into the place where I belong.

Peeta takes a deep breath, his hold tightening as he asks me, "You love me, real or not real?

I scoot my hand across to where his rests on his belly. He's a block of wood now, tense, waiting for my response.

I tell him, "Real."

For a moment, he is frozen but slowly, he relaxes, relenting and turns towards me, first his arms, then his lips and when he kisses me, I feel that heat and hunger rise up in me, dwarfing what I felt on the beach that night in the Quarter Quell. I feel his limbs tighten, the roots deepening in the fertile ground of this night. The thing I long for, the thing I hid from myself all these months, was the hope he carried from the first days of his return, hope that springs up from the earth after it's been sowed with bones and blood and ash. Hope that brings rebirth and life.

I reach over to switch off the lamp, and relying on the light of the cloud-dampened moon, I let myself be carried away by his shaking hands and unsure lips. We fumble with our clothes. Our teeth knock together when we kiss. We flinch when our fingers trace each other's scars. But somehow, in the middle of that uncertainty, we find each other and in that one moment, it's not quite heaven we're kissing. That will come later. I know it because I feel the want in my bones. But there's no space left between us. And through the discomfort, the tender shame and simultaneous acceptance, I feel the warmth of him in my belly, spreading throughout my body, a sigh, than a shout, a moment of awed silence, followed by a giggle of embarrassment. His body fits, awkwardly but perfectly in mine. And after, we kiss again, for as long as we want.

Somewhere close to dawn, when the rain finally stops falling, we get it right. And it wipes the smile off of our faces. As I shake and shatter, he free-falls with me. Later, he holds me close and asks me again, not because he doubts it but because he wants to hear it, as many times as I can spare it.

"You love me, real or not real?"

And each and every time thereafter, I tell him, "Real."

 **XXXXX**

 **This version of events relies heavily on the movie version of** _ **Mockingjay**_ **(Mockingjay, Part 2). In particular,** **akai-echo** **and I complained about Peeta's lack of reaction to Katniss telling him "Real" when he asks, "You love me, Real or Not Real." We called it the "pesce lesso" or "cold fish" effect, in which Peeta just kind of...lays there? That, together with FLaw's decision to leave out the canon kiss in this scene, represents both an explanation and a kind of correction for what was otherwise a lovely growing together sequence. We even suggested it wasn't the first time in the film universe that they'd said those words to each other but there was no way to work it into this story the way it is written.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading! This is definitely dedicated to my friend and partner-in-crime,** **akai-echo.** **Also many thanks to** **madambeth** **, for prereading in a pinch. And thanks to** **growingbacktogether** **for hosting this challenge.**


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